RED CROSS VOLUNTEER SERVING LOUISIANA FLOOD VICTIMS
An Oklahoma Red Cross volunteer currently serving Louisiana flood victims said she is motivated by advice once given to her by a relative.
Doris Baker, 68, of Oklahoma City, has been deployed to 20 major disaster sites in her 11 years as a volunteer, serving victims as a nurse and in other capacities.
“My aunt who helped raised me, always told me to give away the biggest piece, and I have always lived by that. Always when you are serving, give away the biggest piece,” Baker said.
Working as a health services supervisor to help people with their medical prescriptions, Baker arrived in Hammond, La., on Aug. 19.
Baker said when she arrived the shelter was housing 200 people.
“Everybody is just lost,” Baker said.
She is assigned to work from 3 to 11 p.m., but has been going in several hours early to help with the relief effort. “We are real busy,” she said. Baker said she has missed only one Oklahoma disaster in her time with the Red Cross, and volunteers in areas other than medical.
“You have to humble yourself and serve whenever you are called,” she said.
Other volunteers describe Baker as humble and compassionate, but said she runs a tight ship during any operation.
She coordinated other volunteers and distributed supplies at the Home Depot during the Moore tornado that hit on May 20, 2013.
“You always have about five people who are your front-line people and Doris is one of those,” said Kenneth Bentley, volunteer coordinator for the Red Cross serving Arkansas and Oklahoma.
“I have seen her do everything that I can think of,” Bentley said.
The Moore tornado destroyed her daughter’s house, and Baker remembers digging through the rubble looking for her daughter.
“She was on the phone with my husband and she said ‘Dad I think I am gone,’” Baker said. “I remember combing through the rubble for 45 minutes and finally receiving the call from my daughter. I was relieved.”
Baker began her volunteer duties the next morning at the Home Depot.
She went hours without sleeping, coordinating volunteers and donations from across the country.
“That is one of the many example of how selfless she is,” said Bentley, who has worked with Baker for many years. “She will answer the call when the community needs anything.”
Recalling times when the two worked 12-hour shifts together, Bentley said Baker always has a humble heart and will even assist people if she is not volunteering, sometimes spending extra time during a disaster to help.
“I have seen her on two phones at the same time during an emergency, talking to two different people,” Bentley said. “She embodies the spirit of what a Red Cross volunteer should be every day.”
Baker never records the hours she volunteers for the Red Cross. She said she focuses on the people who need help and not on accumulating hours, even spending money out of her own pocket during several disasters.
“God has influenced me to serve others. He gave me a giving heart,” Baker said. “We are the only symbol in the world that knows no language barriers … there is no language barrier to this cross.”
She also volunteers most Thursday nights at a free health clinic in Moore and cooks for her church Wednesdays, making food for about 100 people.
“When we want magic to happen, we go straight to Doris,” Bentley said.